The winner of the best drone video ever on Instagram may be…Jeff Bezos?

Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos recently joined Instagram, and his first ever post was shot by a drone. The drone video shows the Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket production facility in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Blue Origin is an aerospace manufacturer founded in 2000 by Bezos that is developing technologies to send people to space at relatively low costs. New Glenn is the company’s reusable orbital launch vehicle , expected to make its initial launch test before 2020.

Bezos’s Instagram video begins with an aerial view, then pans in towards the building, ending with a photo of Bezos sitting on the roof holding a sign that says “ROCKET FACTORY COMING SOON.”
Bezos in February said he was “hopeful” that Blue Origin will begin offering trips for paying customers next year, adding that “I’m super optimistic” there will be a large market for such 11-minute thrill rides in a fully automated capsule offering views of the earth from the edge of space.

Didn’t get a chance to enter the 2017 Dronestagram contest before the winners were announced? There are still three major drone video contests accepting entries.

SkyPixel, an aerial photography community run in cooperation with DJI, is holding its own contest — this one an aerial videography contest. The deadline to enter is August 2.

There are three categories: Nature, City, and Sport. There’s also a People’s Choice Prize for the top ten most liked videos. Submissions should not be longer than five minutes and should include at least 30 seconds of aerial footage. And while the contest is hosted by DJI, videos captured from any type of aerial platform are welcome.

Nominations have been announced for the 3rd Annual New York City Drone Film Festival, the world’s first and largest film festival dedicated to works filmed by drones.

“(The films) take us to far-away places, examine social issues like climate change and the Dakota Pipeline, and riff on pop culture,” said Randy Scott Slavin, founder and festival director. “One of them even features a team of drones making a cake. With films originating everywhere from the ocean to the desert to the skate park, the 2017 festival is our most diverse one yet.”

The festival will be held March 17-19, 2017 at the Skirball Center for the Performing Arts and the Liberty Science Center. The Best in Show winner at the 2017 New York City Drone Film Festival will receive $75,000 worth of camera and drone gear from Freefly and RED.

To have incredible drone footage, it most be seriously incredible. Lighting, framing, storytelling — they are all important. The NYC Drone Film Festival compiled the best footage from its participants into one, 3-minute long video.

To those of you who watched the premiere of Dancing with the Stars Season 3, you might have caught a tiny glimpse of a drone on the screen. It’s easy to miss.

What’s significantly harder to miss is that the intro of the show was shot in one continuous, two-minute clip. The footage shows all of Season 23’s Celebrity Contestants and Pro Dancers dancing to “On Top of the World” by Imagine Dragons from Los Angeles’s Griffith Observatory.

The drone starts with a wide shot of the whole building, then zooms into the side of the building, and eventually pans around the whole building.

This is a truly incredible drone shot: https://t.co/3IXfeuoqqq great to see drones achieving their potential as creative tools

While the pros are generally making custom-built drones, it’s easy to get started with ready to fly drones (including those first-person-view FPV goggles) for under $500 before you commit to your own build.

EAA AirVenture is the world’s largest air show, and it focuses on all things aviation, from traditional planes to homebuilt planes to skydiving. This year, they significantly expanded their drone offerings, complete with a whole drone tent and flight demo cage.

I led a few drone related events, including a hands-on class for 60 young women, and a seminar on Drones in Today’s World.

But I REALLY had fun checking out the rest of the show and learning a lot about manned aviation. I’m dazzled by the positivity and enthusiasm here. People at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh are curious about what’s new, and proud to show off their own stuff. And the nicest crowd too!